Beekeeping Today Podcast

In this week's episode, we visit with Cliff Struhl about his thoughts on better ways to keep bees than is generally done today (and the past 170 years). Cliff is owner of Bee Smart Designs and has produced several products that aim to reduce some of the stresses we apply when keeping bees in a standard wooden box. He starts with the boxes we use and compares them to the hollow trees bees prefer. He looks further at the insulation needs on both the walls and the top, the metal covers that get really hot in the summer, the entrances and the bottom boards. Basically, we keep bees in a very artificial environment, and as a result and the bees are extremely stressed. We have to be active managers so they can thrive. We also discuss the pragmatic approach for queen rearing, mating, purchasing queens, and overall genetics. Is pragmatic beekeeping the same as 'natural beekeeping'? We find out where there may be differences. He sums this all up by stating that beekeeping requires thoughtful input from the beekeeper since the bees are not able to fend for themselves when kept in the artificial environment we normally provide. We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Bee Smart Designs - https://www.beesmartdesigns.com/ Bee Smart Designs White Papers including Pragmatic Beekeeping - https://www.beesmartdesigns.com/white-papers Bee Culture October Event: Inspiring Leaders in Beekeeping - https://www.beeculture.com/beeing-diverse-inspiring-leaders-in-beekeeping/ Honey Bee Obscura - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global offers a variety of standard and custom patties. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; A Fresh New Start by Pete Morse; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

On today's episode we are joined by professor, author and noted speaker Dr. Dewey Caron. Dewey is an active member of the Honey Bee Health Coalition where he helps with the creation and maintenance of the Coalition's Hive Management program. Today he joins us to talk about the just updated, Varroa Management Guide. Varroa management is a very serious problem for beekeepers around the world. Sadly, varroa was just found in Australia this year with devastating consequences as hundreds, if not thousands of colonies, have been destroyed in an attempt to eradicate the mite before it establishes a foothold on the last, varroa-free continent. The HBHC has published several useful tools for beekeepers to help them manage varroa to a level where the negative effects of varroa, such as the varroa associated viruses and diseases can be limited. This is includes varroa management videos, the Varroa Management Decision Tool, Commercial Beekeeper Case Studies, the Varroa Resistance and Testing Team and today's topic the Varroa Management Guide. The Management Guide explains the tested, practical, and effective methods to manage the mites in your colonies. Dewey talks with us about the updates, varroa and also talks about the latest edition of his book, "Honey Bee Biology and Beekeeping." We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Honey Bee Health Coalition Varroa Management Webpage - https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/resources/varroa-management/ Bee Culture October Event: Inspiring Leaders in Beekeeping - https://www.beeculture.com/beeing-diverse-inspiring-leaders-in-beekeeping/ Honey Bee Obscura - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global offers a variety of standard and custom patties. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; A Fresh New Start by Pete Morse; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Mark Winston joins us on today's episode. Mark just retired from Simon Frazer University in British Columbia. For many years his research focused on honey bees, beekeeping and agriculture. For about a decade he was a regular contributor to Bee Culture magazine, where he explored the biology of honey bees, and the sociality of beekeepers. His writings include the books The Biology of The Honey Bee, Killer Bees, Nature Wars (his observations on agricultural pesticides), From Where I Sit: Essays on Bees, Beekeeping and Science, Travels in Genetically Modified Crops (his perspectives on genetically modified plants) and his two thoughtful observations of the relations of bees and man in Bee Time, Lessons From The Hive, and his last bee book, Listening To The Bees (how bees, people and society and people are alike). He took that level of thought from bees and applied it to people where he began working in his university's new Center For Dialogue. There he achieved wide recognition as a distinguished educator, consultant and communicator. Our talk with Mark looks back on his time in honey bee research, his books on bees and beekeepers and some of his newer work on communications. ** Correction: In the opening, Jeff mistakenly refers to the product "Apistan". Apistan is the product name of the acaricide fluvalinate. The Amitraz product he should have referenced is Apivar. We apologize for any confusion and misdirection. We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Mark Winston's Website - http://winstonhive.com Honey Bee Health Coalition Varroa Management Webpage - https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/resources/varroa-management/ Bee Culture October Event: Inspiring Leaders in Beekeeping - https://www.beeculture.com/beeing-diverse-inspiring-leaders-in-beekeeping/ Honey Bee Obscura - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global offers a variety of standard and custom patties. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; A Fresh New Start by Pete Morse; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Dr. Tracy Farone, joins us in this episode. Tracy is a veterinarian, a professor of biology at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania, a board member of the Honey Bee Veterinary Consortium, a beekeeper and a regular contributor to Bee Culture magazine. Veterinarians, you will hear her say, were brought into the beekeeping world because of the diseases bees face and the potential for antimicrobial resistance. It's been a change the industry has had to face. It was not all that long ago, products such as Terramycin™ (oxcytetracycline) was found on farm store shelves and beekeepers were directed to use it in the treatment of American Foulbrood. It was also occasionally suggested to use it as a dusting on the top bars of brood frames to prophylactically prevent AFB. With the rise of antibiotic resistant varieties of diseases, the unprescribed use these medications has been stopped and now available for use on animals and livestock only under the prescription of a veterinarian. "I understand why beekeepers want to do what they've always been doing, but they're facing more and more bee health problems. It would be good to get veterinarians on board." she said. "We can contribute here. We can provide so much more than a prescription or VFD to the industry. If we can blend veterinary medical expertise within the beekeeping industry, it's not just an arranged marriage, but a marriage where we can help each other." This is a fascinating discussion and one you will not want to miss. We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Honey Bee Veternarian Consortium - https://www.hbvc.org Grove City College Bees - https://www.gccbeeproject.com/ HBVC Talk with Beekeeping Today Podcast - https://www.beekeepingtodaypodcast.com/the-honey-bee-veterinary-consortium-with-allie-and-britteny-s3-e15/ Bee Culture October Event: Inspiring Leaders in Beekeeping - https://www.beeculture.com/beeing-diverse-inspiring-leaders-in-beekeeping/ Honey Bee Obscura - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global offers a variety of standard and custom patties. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; A Fresh New Start by Pete Morse; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

When we started this podcast back in 2018, not only did we want to bring you the known and established voices in beekeeping and honey bee research, we also set out to highlight the new voices. Today's episode we introduce two new researchers. Project Apis m and CostCo established the PAm-Costco Scholarship Awards, in 2013. The students who receive this PhD Scholarship award bring new energy, ideas, and expertise to the scientists on the leading edge of bee health research. The award program supports outstanding graduate students pursuing research-based doctoral degrees in fields of enhancing honey bee health while improving crop production. Today's guests are two of the 2022 winners. In fact, they are Co-Awardees, Audrey Parish and Chris Robinson. Audrey is a PhD candidate in Irene Newton's lab at Indiana University. As you will soon hear, Audrey studies how the honey bee larval microbiome helps protect larvae from various stressors. We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Project Apis m.-Costco Scholarship Awards - https://www.projectapism.org/pam-costco-scholars.html Bee Culture's BEEing Diverse October Event - https://www.beeculture.com/beeing-diverse-inspiring-leaders-in-beekeeping/ Honey Bee Obscura - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global offers a variety of standard and custom patties. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com We welcome HiveAlive back as an episode sponsor. HiveAlive is the #1 liquid feed supplement for honeybees worldwide. It contains a unique blend of seaweed extracts, thyme and lemongrass. HiveAlive has been proven to increase bee strength, produce more honey, improved bee gut health and improved overwinter survival. Ask about HiveAlive and new HiveAlive Fondant & Pollen Patty at your local beekeeping store or visit the website www.usa.hivealivebees.com for more information. Listeners of the podcast can claim a special discount online using the code "BTP" at the checkout! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; A Fresh New Start by Pete Morse; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

In this archive special episode from November, 2020, Master Beekeeper, Katharina Davitt reveals the nutritional benefits honey bees derive from bananas. Yes, you read that correctly, bananas! We all know that bananas are good for people. They are full of carbs, minerals, vitamins, are good for digestion and just taste good. But the one thing all beekeepers learn when they start out is that when bees are threatened, they release alarm pheromone and that smells like bananas. So up to now, wise beekeepers didn't bring bananas to the bee yard. But it turns out feeding bananas to honey bees is actually a good way to get good food into a hive. Really. Katharina Davitt tell us why and how. Her University of Montana Master Beekeeper research project explored the nutritional requirements of honey bees and the properties of bananas. Katharina shares data behind this! The conclusions reached from this study found that colonies cannot live on bananas alone, but bananas will help in the spring, during a summer dearth and in the fall. But who would have thought – bananas for bees?! Before the talk with Katharina, Kirsten, Kim and Jeff discuss the ongoing debate pitting the honey bee against native bees and pollinators. Why the debate? What's the issue and what's the real problem? Kim, Kirsten and Kim explore it all. Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Klamath Bees - https://www.klamathbees.com Davitt Apiaries - http://davitt.com Cavendish Bananas and their Nutritional Benefit to Honey Bees - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j3TdyD1Nb7FTBECcuBoRwSzh6Y_CfAnT/view?usp=drivesdk Cavendish Bananas Increase Brood Rearing in Apis Mellifera - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p1fK3BxWjpq98sIHuXSe3XU7nGCteg1h/view?usp=drivesdk Kirsten's referenced Gordian knot paper - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S016953472030207X Historical reference to beekeepers advocating for environmental protection - https://academic.oup.com/envhis/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/envhis/emaa059/5921133 We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global offers a variety of standard and custom patties. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com We welcome HiveAlive back as an episode sponsor. HiveAlive is the #1 liquid feed supplement for honeybees worldwide. It contains a unique blend of seaweed extracts, thyme and lemongrass. HiveAlive has been proven to increase bee strength, produce more honey, improved bee gut health and improved overwinter survival. Ask about HiveAlive and new HiveAlive Fondant & Pollen Patty at your local beekeeping store or visit the website www.usa.hivealivebees.com for more information. Listeners of the podcast can claim a special discount online using the code "BTP" at the checkout! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; A Fresh New Start by Pete Morse; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Bee Culture's Annual October Event is back. After two years of dealing with Covid delays, Editor Jerry Hayes has put together a two day event in Medina, Ohio that you will not want to miss. On today's episode, we talk with Jerry about the thirteen fantastic and inspiring leaders scheduled to talk of their journeys to get to where they are today, and a close look at the projects they are involved in now. The list is long and diverse, including researchers, business leaders, industry professionals, commercial beekeepers, state bee inspectors, bee breeders, professors and more. You can (and really you should) attend in person, or tune in for live Zoom presentations, or tune in later for recorded zoom presentations. Listen today and find out the speakers and all the rest of the information you will need to be apart of this fantastic event. And check out even more info at https://www.beeculture.com/beeing-diverse-inspiring-leaders-in-beekeeping/. In this week's Bee Books Old And New, Kim reviews the reissued book by Lesley Goodman, "Form and Function In The Honey Bee", available directly from Northern Bee Books or Amazon. We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Bee Culture's BEEing Diverse October Event - https://www.beeculture.com/beeing-diverse-inspiring-leaders-in-beekeeping/ Honey Bee Obscura - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global offers a variety of standard and custom patties. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com We welcome HiveAlive back as an episode sponsor. HiveAlive is the #1 liquid feed supplement for honeybees worldwide. It contains a unique blend of seaweed extracts, thyme and lemongrass. HiveAlive has been proven to increase bee strength, produce more honey, improved bee gut health and improved overwinter survival. Ask about HiveAlive and new HiveAlive Fondant & Pollen Patty at your local beekeeping store or visit the website www.usa.hivealivebees.com for more information. Listeners of the podcast can claim a special discount online using the code "BTP" at the checkout! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; A Fresh New Start by Pete Morse; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

On this week's episode, we are joined by Sarah Red-Laird, the Bee Girl and she is on a mission this summer. Sarah is visiting all sorts of people in the Midwest who are trying to do the same thing she is doing from her home in Oregon. All are trying to regenerate bee pasture in one way or another. Her trip is supported by Browning's Honey and a host of individual's who follow her work. She just visited Judy WuSmart in Nebraska finding out about the zillions of acres of corn that grows there. Sarah was sitting on the grounds of Blue Dasher Farm visiting with Jon Lundgren, an annual guest on our podcast, while talking with us. She was working with Jon's team, learning more about regenerative farming and helping bees find food. Sarah also shares a lot about the Beegirl organization and how it supports Honey Bee Habitat Conservation. You can find out a lot more about her non-profit organization, her mid-west trip this summer and the programs she is involved in on her website at www.BeeGirl.org. This week, Kim reviews three books by Wally Shaw, on Bee Books Old and New with Kim Flottum: There Are Queen Cells In My Hive - https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1912271176/ Feeding Bees - https://smile.amazon.com/Simple-Methods-Making-Increase-Wally/dp/1908904755/ Simple Methods of Making Increase - https://smile.amazon.com/Feeding-Bees-Wally-Shaw/dp/1912271818/ We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: The Bee Girl Organization - https://www.beegirl.org 2 Million Blossoms Interview with Lars Chittka: The Mind of the Bee - https://2millionblossoms.com/thepodcast/23/ Honey Bee Obscura - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global offers a variety of standard and custom patties. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com We welcome HiveAlive back as an episode sponsor. HiveAlive is the #1 liquid feed supplement for honeybees worldwide. It contains a unique blend of seaweed extracts, thyme and lemongrass. HiveAlive has been proven to increase bee strength, produce more honey, improved bee gut health and improved overwinter survival. Ask about HiveAlive and new HiveAlive Fondant & Pollen Patty at your local beekeeping store or visit the website www.usa.hivealivebees.com for more information. Listeners of the podcast can claim a special discount online using the code "BTP" at the checkout! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; A Fresh New Start by Pete Morse; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

This week, Kim and Jeff talk with Jay Feldman, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Beyond Pesticides. Beyond Pesticides is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., which works with allies in protecting public health and the environment to lead the transition to a world free of toxic pesticides. Beyond Pesticides provides visitors to their website a wealth of information to help folks understand, truly understand, the chemicals they apply around their house and garden in order to eradicate pests. Perhaps the best is Beyond Pesticide's ManageSafe™ Tool. Using ManageSafe, a homeowner can select the pest they are have, then read about that pest, whether it is a real concern, preventative measures, non-chemical/mechanical controls, biological controls, an ascending order list of the least-toxic chemical controls and the chemicals to avoid. This is a valuable resource for beekeepers and those interested in all pollinators. Book mark it and share it with your family, friends and neighbors! This week, Kim reviews three books by Wally Shaw, on Bee Books Old and New with Kim Flottum: Comb Management - https://www.amazon.com/Comb-Management-Wally-Shaw/dp/1912271354/ An Apiary Guide to Swarm Control - https://www.amazon.com/Apiary-Guide-Swarm-Control/dp/1914934369 Harvesting Honey - https://www.amazon.com/Harvesting-Honey-Wally-Shaw/dp/1912271362 We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Beyond Pesticides - https://www.beyondpesticides.org ManageSafe(™) - https://www.beyondpesticides.org/resources/managesafe/overview Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com We welcome HiveAlive back as an episode sponsor. HiveAlive is the #1 liquid feed supplement for honeybees worldwide. It contains a unique blend of seaweed extracts, thyme and lemongrass. HiveAlive has been proven to increase bee strength, produce more honey, improved bee gut health and improved overwinter survival. Ask about HiveAlive and new HiveAlive Fondant & Pollen Patty at your local beekeeping store or visit the website www.usa.hivealivebees.com for more information. Listeners of the podcast can claim a special discount online using the code "BTP" at the checkout! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; A Fresh New Start by Pete Morse; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

This week we talk with EAS Master Beekeeper, Deborah Klughers. Deb lives out on the eastern end of Long Island where she keeps her own bees and manages colonies for other people in the area. Deb is leading the EAS Conference track on Apitherapy, August first through the fifth. Apitherapy is the use of hive products to improve a one's health. Everything from propolis, honey, pollen, royal jelly and well… everything including as you will hear, drone and worker larvae! However, what probably gets the most press, is the use of bee venom commonly called, "Sting Therapy". It's a bit controversial, but quietly common. It is a fascinating discussion and one we hope you enjoy, whether you proactively like sting therapy or it is just an unintentional fringe benefit of keeping bees! We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Deb Klugher's Website - https://www.BonacBees.com American Apitherapy Society - https://apitherapy.org/en/ Eastern Apicultural Society - https://easternapiculture.org Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

On this episode, we learn share everything you ever wanted to know about Small Hive Beetles, with Drs. Morgan Roth and Aaron Gross, from Virginia Tech. Small hive beetles cause about $3 million dollars damage to US beehives every year. Today we explore their life cycle, how they find your hives, the damage they can do if you don't interfere, how they spread, and most importantly, what you can do to slow, or stop them from destroying your hive and killing your bees. They eat honey, pollen, eggs and larvae. And they bring with them a fungus that turns their fecal waste into a slime that may be the worst thing imaginable in a bee hive. There are several ways to attack this creature and stop them from spreading to other hives. You can trap them inside your hives, you can make the area around your hives dangerous for them to burrow in when they leave and pupate outside the hive or you can provide pesticides or bacteria outside the hive that will stop them. Also in today's episode, Ed Colby returns with a story from his book, "A Beekeeper's Life: Tales of a Beekeeper", titled Staying Cool. Ed has a great tale on how to keep cool on while working bees in the heat of the summer! We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Virginia Tech Paper on the Small Hive Beetle - https://digitalpubs.ext.vt.edu/vcedigitalpubs/5235922779538617/MobilePagedReplica.action?pm=2&folio=1#pg1 Drs. Roth and Gross's Published Paper on the Small Hive Beetle - https://digitalpubs.ext.vt.edu/vcedigitalpubs/5235922779538617/MobilePagedReplica.action?pm=2&folio=1#pg1 Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

On today's episode, we talk with Dwayne Combs about his business Beehive Monitoring USA and the line of beehive sensors, by a Slovakian company manufacturing the HiveHeart monitor. Dave's business is the US distributor of the equipment they produce. The device he sells is called HiveHeart 3.0. You can obtain the HiveHeart internal monitoring device and one of 2 levels of scales you can also purchase. With these come an App for your phone. The Hive Heart uploads the data it collects from your hive to your phone, then your phone sends that data to the Bee Hive Monitoring servers in the cloud. You data is analyzed and available to you in easy to view graphs or downloadable as individual reports. All of the data is useful to the beekeeper to make informed management decisions on the health and productivity of their monitored colonies. Additionally, it will help reduce the number of visits a hive will require, will warn of impending problems, and prepare the beekeeper for what needs to be done on the next visit. Duane also discusses the challenges of being a beekeeper in the Southwest in an area where Africanized Honey Bees (AHB) are still an issue. We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Beehive Monitoring USA - https://beehivemonitoringusa.com Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

We're taking the week off to prepare for our July 4th Holiday with our families. We hope you enjoy this special from our first year of the podcast where we introduced many of you to Dr. Jim Tew. Jim cohosts the Honey Bee Obscura podcast with Kim and is a long time contributor to our lead sponsor, Bee Culture. We hope you have a safe and enjoyable long holiday weekend. We invited (mostly retired) Dr. James Tew to the podcast to share with us some of his beekeeping experiences and observations. Jim brings an insightful and sometimes humorous perspective from how he got into bees... and how a bee once got into him! Jim has retired from the Ohio State University Ag Extension in Wooster, Ohio and still lives and cares for his own bees in the area. Jim has several books on beekeeping available on Amazon, can be seen regularly on Bee Culture's Kim and Jim Show, and monthly in Bee Culture. Kim wraps up the show with his Inner Covered. We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

First up on today's podcast, Jeff talks with Maya Ajmera, CEO of the Society for Science who along with the pharmaceutical company Regeneron, host an annual science contest for high school seniors. Maya talks with Jeff about the contest and what it takes and means to be a finalist! Next Kim and Jeff talk with Amara Orth. Amara lives on her family farm in Glenwood Iowa, near Council Bluffs. Her parents have 25 colonies and her grandfather has a couple thousand colonies. She's been around bees her whole life. Amara graduated from high school this spring and will be attending Stanford college this fall. A couple of years ago, when working bees with her grandfather, he said something that got her attention….the bees sound different today, and that got her to thinking about the sounds of bees. Amara set up a series of listening devices on her 25 hives to eavesdrop on her bees so she could identify the vibroacoustic patterns she detected in each hive. She measured the sounds and vibrations in each hive and developed a mathematical model that analyzed colony health with an accuracy of 92%. She entered her research in Regeneron Science Talent Search Awards program and placed 9th out of several thousand entries, earning a $50,000 award. Listen in today and find out more about the sounds of colony health. We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Explanation of Amara's Project on YouTube - https://youtu.be/s0746LCNZkA Regeneron Science Talent Search - https://www.societyforscience.org/regeneron-sts/ Society for Science - https://www.societyforscience.org Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Dr. Kelly Kulhanek recently moved to Pullman, WA., where she has started her work there on assisting with the Asian Giant Hornet research. In addition to this she is working with the research on indoor wintering of honey bees for commercial beekeepers. All of this will help her with her new role as extension specialist for WSU. In today's episode, Kelly talk with Kim and Jeff about the current status of the Asian Giant Hornet in Washington State and the steps state beekeepers can do to prepare for the possibility this of invasive pest. Additionally, WSU has received multiple grants to research all the aspects of the indoor wintering of honey bee colonies in refrigerated warehouses. Kelly is working on this research. So far, the results have demonstrated a clear benefit, so much so, many large commercial beekeepers have already started building and renting warehouse space to house their bees over the winter. We hope you enjoy our conversation with Kelly. This week also kicks off Pollinator Week. Pollinator Partnership worked to get the week designated to celebrate all the benefits pollinators bring the environment. Go to their website to learn how you can participate in the week long activities. Finally, this show is the start of the fifth year of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Thank you, our listeners, for following the podcast on your platform of choice. We're here each week for you. We have a great season in store. If you know of a guest or have a topic in mind for an episode, let us know in the comments. We'd love to hear from you. We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: WSU Hopkins Bee Lab - https://labs.wsu.edu/hopkinslab/ Pollinator Partnership Pollinator Week - https://www.pollinator.org/pollinator-week Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Seven years ago, father and son set out to redesign the way honey is harvested from bee hives. There must be a way, they reasoned, to get the honey from the comb without disturbing the bees and then bottling the honey directly from the hive. They placed their idea on Indiegogo and early orders exceeded all expectations when they topped over $12.5 million US dollars! Today, after over 50 iterations of the product, Flow Hive has established itself as a solid name in honey production for the small scale beekeeper. In this episode, we talk with Cedar Anderson, who alongside his father, invented the concept of the Flow frame, super and hive. We talked with Cedar's father and co-inventor in the spring of 2021. Today, Cedar talks about the origins of the Flow Hive, the changes they've made and how as a company, they are now giving back to the planet through their multiple pollinator programs and research support. One program they are working to expand is Billions of Blossoms. It's a project dedicated to planting trees that bees can use. Not just honey bees, but all kinds of bees. So far this year they have planted a half million trees and another half million are planned across the United State, Australia and other countries For the Flow Hive itself, they've expanded community support by ramping up their instructions, added to their YouTube sits and now have a regular call in program so you can talk to the folks who actually make and use these hives, in person, and ask them the questions you have with your equipment. Listen to our talk with Cedar and hear for yourself all the projects they've developed to make the world a better place, one bee at a time. You might even consider a Flow Hive! We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: The Flow Hive Homepage - https://www.honeyflow.com Billions of Blossoms - https://www.honeyflow.com/pages/blossoms Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

This week we talk with professional bike racer, Maghalie Rochette, from Quebec, Canada. She is good. Really good. Maghalie came in 2nd in the Canadian National Championships, September, 2021; Is three-times Canadian Cyclocross Champion, three-times Pan American Cyclocross Champion and a Cyclocross World Cup winner. She has her sights set on greater goals this season! But what, you may be asking, does this have to do with beekeeping? Good question! We all know we beekeepers are a generally thought of as being a bit odd to most other people. Admittedly, most people think anyone who willingly puts their bare hands into a box of thousands of stinging insects, is, let's say, eccentric. That distinction is something we also wear as a badge of distinction and honor. We we see the beauty in the honey bee and the hive. So Kim and Jeff thought, let's turn this back on itself. Who are the beekeepers who you would never guess are beekeepers? Recently, they talked with the NYPD Official Beekeepers, Darren Mays. He wears a badge and pistol along with his smoker and hive tool. Today's guest, Maghalie is paid to ride bikes fast and she wears lycra to work. Not your typical beekeeper. Listen to today's episode to learn how beekeeping and bike racing are actually quite complementary. Anyone can be a beekeeper! We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Maghalie's Website - http://www.maghalierochette.com Maghalie's Podcast, "Fever Talk" - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fever-talk/id1532785341 Maghalie's Sponsor, Rapha, feature on her - https://www.rapha.cc/us/en_US/stories/meet-maghalie-rochette Jeff's Swarm on Memorial Day - https://mybroodminder.com/share/hive/248b0c30108842b583d91ffadb1336f9 Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Imagine responding to every emergency call into 911 about swarms in New York City - across all five boroughs, including Times Square! Well, imagine no more because, today's guest, Darren Mays was the Official beekeeper for the New York City Police Department up until he retired. Darren worked nights as a regular police officer, responding to the calls all police officers responded to. Robberies, domestic disputes, prisoner transports, and everything else. In the morning, he'd go home to sleep, but he was always on call for the 911 for honey bees and swarms… When he'd get the call, he'd head back into the city, collect the swarm, and take them home. All in a day's work! When you think about swarms and honey bees, it is natural to think of green fields, apple trees and blue skies. Not… a security camera on 42nd and Broadway on Times Square in bustling New York City! This was Darren's world. It is said that New Yorkers have seen and are used to seeing, everything. But not honey bee swarms. These stopped people in their tracks and caused quite the commotion. Darren would arrive and with the calmness of an experienced beekeeper (or movie cop hero) save the day by removing the bees letting the city continue in its day. We hope you enjoy listening to Darren's experiences as the official NYPD beekeeper as much as we do! Also in today's episode, Ed Colby returns with a story from his book, "A Beekeeper's Life: Tales of a Beekeeper", titled Granny. Granny wants bees on her land… but she off the beaten track. It's a conundrum that only Ed could get himself into! We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Can you imagine the difficulty in trying to work a standard Langstroth hive when sitting in a wheelchair? Or how about working bees while blind? These are just two of the handicaps that Justin Ruger is working on so that people with handicaps like these can work bees. Justin is in a wheelchair so he knows what he's talking about. His group is a 501 3c charitable program, working to get training apiaries in every state to accommodate teaching handicapped people how to keep bees, no matter their condition. These apiaries will have all the requirements needed for these people. Along with University in Pennsylvania, he is developing techniques for teaching, building specialized equipment and developing standards for state programs. This way, beekeeping organizations and equipment manufacturers can use the specifications and recommendations as guidelines to providing the right location setup and the right equipment for establishing their own accessible apiraries Check out their web site for even more information on Accessible Beekeeping. And share what you find with everybody you can. Also in today's episode, Kim returns with a new Bee Books Old and New, presented by Northern Bee Books. This week, Kim reviews, The Principles of Bee Improvement, by Jo Widdicombe We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Accessible Beekeeping.org - https://www.accessiblebeekeeping.org Accessible Beekeeping Survey - https://www.accessiblebeekeeping.org/survey Accessible Beekeeping Podcast - https://www.accessiblebeekeeping.org/podcast "Henry Meets A Bee" series of children books - https://www.hippiechickapiary.com/books Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

In this replay from the Beekeeping Today Podcast Archive Super, we talk with Dr. Tom D. Seeley. We originally talked with Tom in 2019. Dr. Seeley is a Horace White Professor in Biology at Cornell University where he teaches courses on animal behavior, specializing in understanding the social life of honey bees. His scientific research focuses on the phenomenon of swarm intelligence, which is defined as the solving of cognitive problems by a group of individuals who pool their knowledge and process it through social interactions. Tom joins Jeff and Kim in this episode to discuss bee hunting (aka: bee lining). He also delves deeper into the topic of his article in the January 2019 Bee Culture on Darwinian Beekeeping. Tom is a author of several books related to honey bee biology and behavior, including: The Wisdom of the Hive, 1996 Honeybee Democracy, 2010 Following The Wild Bees: The Craft and Science of Bee Hunting, 2016 The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild, 2019 In the podcast, Tom references his video on the topic of Bee Hunting. You can find it On YouTube. We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website. Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Bee Hunting: Finding A Wild Colony of Honey Bees - https://youtu.be/-fCwoZwPilo Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Drs. Michael Simone-Finstrom and Dr. Frank Rinkevich, are research entomologists at the Baton Rouge Honey Bee Research Laboratory in Baton Rouge, LA. They have completed an extensive set of tests in commercial beekeeping operations on mite resistance, overwintering, honey production and virus loads of the varroa sensitive hygiene (VSH) P0L Line of honey bees bred there since the 1990s. The line, called the Pol-line is drawn from the original line to be used as pollinator bees, have as a basis for mite resistance, the VSH trait, where mites in brood cells are removed by nurse bees before they are able to complete development. Over the season these bees were subjected to moving to almonds, and from almonds to other pollination jobs or to honey production areas in MS, CA, ND and SD to sample a wide variety of environments. The results are definitely encouraging. Listen to learn more! Next on their agenda? Getting these bees into the hands commercial beekeepers so they can take advantage of the money saving, and honey bee saving attributes of these bees. Also in this episode, Jeff meets up with Dr. Dewey Caron and receives an update from on Dewey's PNW Honey Bee Survey. Finally, before the main interview with Drs Simone and Rinkevich, Kim delivers his review of Brother Adam's book, "Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey", presented by Northern Bee Books. This is one packed episode! Let us know what you think by leaving comments for this episode above. Start a discussion! Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Baton Rouge Bee Lab - https://www.ars.usda.gov/southeast-area/baton-rouge-la/honeybeelab/ Pol-Line Honey Bee Research Paper - https://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publication/?seqNo115=317665 Pacific Northwest Bee Survey & Results - https://pnwhoneybeesurvey.com Kim's Book Review, "Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey" by Brother Adam - https://amazon.com/dp/0907908373 Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

On today episode, we welcome Dr. Jerry Bromenshenk ('retired' from the University of Montana) and Rob Seccomb to talk with us about the Bee Health Guru app and the new Commercial Beekeeper Course they are developing in partnership with the SAVE Farm program in Kansas. SAVE (Service Member Agricultural Vocation Education) received funding from USDA NIFA under a subcontract from the SAVE Farm in Manhattan, Kansas. For this three-year project, Jerry and Rob will produce online training resources for members and veterans of the military centered on Commercial Beekeeping, while Kansas State Department of Agriculture will provide the hands-on-training, including getting a CDL and a Certification for Loader Operation. The genesis of the program started with Fort Riley's Warrior Transition Battalion's occupational therapists. The SAVE program offers transition from the security and comradery of the military to the serenity and immersion offered by farming, avoiding what can be a debilitating and often dangerous period following discharge. Join us as we learn about the SAVE program, the Bee Health Guru app, the future of Jerry's electronic monitoring conferences and more! Kim returns in this episode with Bee Books: Old and New, reviewing a timely book by Richard Ball, Swarm Control. Let us know what you think by leaving comments for this episode above. Start a discussion! Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Bee Health Guru - https://www.beehealth.guru Kansas Dept. of Ag SAVE - https://portal.nifa.usda.gov/web/crisprojectpages/1013030-service-member-agricultural-vocation-education-save-a-pathway-to-farming-for-transitioning-service-members-and-veterans.html SAVE the Farm - https://www.thesavefarm.org Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

We first met the Regional Beekeepers back in May of 2020. Then twice a year since, we've made a point to catch a chat with them to talk about their bees, their challenges, their successes and plans for the next six months. This time, we move from west to east. First we meet Paul Longwell from Olympia, WA. A master beekeeper. He maintains AŽ Hives, Long Langstroth hives, and standard Langstroths. Next stop is along the western slope of Colorado where we meet up with commercial beekeeper, Ed Colby. Ed is a regular here on the podcast reading portions of his book, Tales from the Bottom Board. Next stop is just east of Akron, Ohio, where we check in with Tracy Alarcon. Tracey has years of experience keeping bees and raising his own queens. He's even been the county bee inspector. So he's seen all the good and bad. Fortunately, most of the bad has been with other's colonies! Last stop on the trip is in Locust, North Carolina where we meet up again with chemical free beekeeper, Mark Smith. Mark is building his chemical free apiary using no outside bees since 2011. He posts regularly on Instagram under Flatwoods Bee Farm. We invite you to join us and compare your story to theirs. Let us know what you think by leaving comments for this episode above. Start a discussion! Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Happy Earth Day… week. Earth Day is this Friday, April 22… and in recognition of that day, we've invited Dr. Jonathan Lundgren back to the show to talk about his work at Blue Dasher Farm and with the Ecdysis Foundation's research on regenerative agriculture and soil conversation. We first learned of Jonathan in the Peter Nelson film, The Pollinators. If you have not seen it, do yourself a favor and rent it online at your earliest opportunity… if only for the photography alone! Peter has been a guest on the podcast a couple of times, as well. Jonathan's and the Ecdysis Foundation is working to show that regenerative agriculture is ultimately less expensive and healthier for the soil, crops and bees. Yes bees! Bees that forage on farmlands using regenerative agricultural practices are showing to be more resistant to varroa mites and therefore healthier! It makes sense, since the bees tend to be less stressed by agricultural chemicals and have varied foraging opportunities – all contributing to a healthier colony, able to ward off varroa! Research will continue as part of the 1,000 Farm Initiative. Let us know what you think by leaving comments for this episode above. Start a discussion! Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: The Ecdysis Foundation - https://www.ecdysis.bio Blue Dasher Farm - https://www.bluedasher.farm 1000 Farm Initiative - https://www.ecdysis.bio/featured-project Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

This week, Kim is back and we talk with Dr. Erica Shelley. We find out what her research organization, Best For Bees, Ltd. does, and learn about their latest discoveries that will make your bees safer than you can imagine. Best for Bees performs beekeeping field work for honey bee researchers. Their latest project is working with Dr. Peter Kevan in developing equipment that will successfully make api-vectoring a beekeeping tool. Did you know that there are a multitude of soil borne fungi that make their living by eating mites and other tiny soil creatures? This new technology will isolate these soil-borne fungi, then using equipment they have developed, have bees move inert fungi into a beehive (this is the api-vectoring part of the solution), where they will become active in the friendly environment of a hive, then will find and eventually devour varroa mites, without harming the bees, the honey, the wax or the hive in any way. It's an innovative hive entrance/exit device and it is one cool piece of beekeeping equipment. This bee vectoring technology (that is bees moving something into a hive) can be used to protect the hive from any number of pests and predators without the issues of toxins in the hive, resistance by the mites and others to chemicals, and remain as safe as can be for the bees, the beekeepers and those who consume our products. Plus, her team has developed a very innovative entrance device that can control traffic at the entrance, can be used to reduce or enhance traffic and protect the hive from all manner of exterior pests and predators. ProtectABee is something every beekeeper will want to have. Take a look at how this works and where you can get one, or more. Let us know what you think by leaving comments for this episode above. Start a discussion! Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Best for Bees website - https://www.bestforbees.com ProtectaBee, More than a Hive Entrance - https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/protectabee-all-in-one-adjustable-hive-entrance#/ Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Dr. Andony Melathopoulos, an entomologist with the Oregon State University Agricultural Extension Service, returns to Beekeeping Today Podcast to talk to us about pesticides and how beekeepers can help mitigate the risk to their bees by understanding label on a pesticide container. The first challenge is to actually see and read the fine print. The second is to understand the fine nuances of the wording. Andony gives us a test in reading the label. Listen in and see how well you do! After the discussion on pesticides and labels, Andony discusses the Oregon Bee Atlas and the Oregon Certified Master Melittologist program. The Bee Atlas has set the goal of identifying every bee in the State of Oregon. They've developed a largest database of its kind in the United States. Accordingly, they have developed a certification program in order to help educate those who have the interest and drive to take their understanding 'to the next level' through a structured learning program. Blueberries pollination is big business in Oregon, but there is trouble hidden there. Besides the low rates for hives – especially given the record fuel prices – European Foulbrood lurks in the fields. Why do honey bees experience more EFB coming out of blueberries than any other crop? Is there an answer? Finally, Androny talks about his podcast, PolliNation. In PolliNation, Andony talks with researchers, land managers and citizens who work to improve the health of all pollinators. Also in this episode, Ed Colby stops by with a tale from his stay with the former President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushenko and his family, while at the 2013 Apimondia Congress. Check out Ed's book, A Beekeeper's Life. Tales from the Bottom Board. All in all, a big episode, guest co-hosted by Honey Bee Obscura Podcast's Jim Tew! Join us! Let us know what you think by leaving comments for this episode above. Start a discussion! Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Oregon Bee Atlas - https://extension.oregonstate.edu/bee-atlas Oregon Extension Service: Get to Know the Label - https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/em8841 Oregon Certified Master Melittologist Program - https://extension.oregonstate.edu/bee-atlas/becoming-certified-master-melittologist PolliNation Podcast - https://extension.oregonstate.edu/podcast/pollination-podcast Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

This week, we invite Geoff Williams and Mikayla Wilson from Bee Informed Partnership to talk with us about their 2022 Loss and Management Survey! It kicks off in April - in just a few days! The Bee Informed Partnership was started in 2007 by the Apiary Inspectors of America as a non-profit organization with the goal to improve honey bee colony health and survivorship in the United States. The Colony Loss and Management Survey is one of BIPs longest running programs. BIP defines "Colony Loss" as as a turn-over rate, as high levels of losses do not necessarily result in a decrease in the total number of colonies managed in the United States. This is often misinterpreted that the 'bees are disappearing'. Beekeepers should be able to correct this while talking with non-beekeepers. Geoff and Mikayla talk about this year's survey and how you can participate, whether you are a commercial, sideliner or hobby beekeeper. BIP has other programs which Geoff and Mikayla discuss, including the Tech Transfer Program, and the Sentinel Apiary Program (which is still accepting participating beekeepers until April 24th) and how you can support BIP without sending a dime. BIP is part of Amazon Smile where 0.5% of your purchase is donated to a non-profit charity of your choice. Make BIP your charity of choice! Let us know what you think by leaving comments for this episode above. Start a discussion! Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Bee Informed Partnership - https://beeinformed.org BIP 2020-21 Survey Results by State - https://research.beeinformed.org/loss-map/ BIP Sentinel Apiary Program details - https://beeinformed.org/citizen-science/sentinel-apiaries/ Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com We welcome HiveAlive back as an episode sponsor. HiveAlive is the #1 liquid feed supplement for honeybees worldwide. It contains a unique blend of seaweed extracts, thyme and lemongrass. HiveAlive has been proven to increase bee strength, produce more honey, improved bee gut health and improved overwinter survival. Ask about HiveAlive and new HiveAlive Fondant & Pollen Patty at your local beekeeping store or visit the website www.usa.hivealivebees.com for more information. This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

On today's episode, we invite back friend of the podcast, James Wilkes to talk about the latest updates and changes to the HiveTracks: the Beekeeper's Companion, which has grown beyond being just a great hive management application for your mobile device. We also talked about the exciting new international program he and our other two guests, Laura Becker and Sarah Denton are working on to localize the Beekeeper's Companion app for women beekeepers in Uzbekistan, Ethiopia, and Lebanon. In those developing countries, beekeeping is more than a hobby, it is a means to a better livelihood in the face of climate change. The AID-CSB projects localize the Beekeeper's Companion app to incorporate traditional and local beekeeping knowledge along with weather data to help beekeepers monitor and manage their hives. Let us know what you think by leaving comments for this episode above. Start a discussion! Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: HiveTracks - https://www.hivetracks.com HiveTracks Blog in Uzbekistan visit - https://www.hivetracks.com/post/we-spent-7-days-working-with-women-beekeepers-in-uzbekistan-here-s-what-we-learned ICARDA Blog on AID-CSB in Uzbekistan and Ethiopia - https://www.icarda.org/media/blog/ai-driven-climate-smart-beekeeping-ethiopian-and-uzbek-women AID-CSB Advisory & Extension Project in Lebanon - https://www.weltohnehunger.org/innovative-ai-driven-beekeeping-app.html Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com We welcome HiveAlive back as an episode sponsor. HiveAlive is the #1 liquid feed supplement for honeybees worldwide. It contains a unique blend of seaweed extracts, thyme and lemongrass. HiveAlive has been proven to increase bee strength, produce more honey, improved bee gut health and improved overwinter survival. Ask about HiveAlive and new HiveAlive Fondant & Pollen Patty at your local beekeeping store or visit the website www.usa.hivealivebees.com for more information. This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Today, we invite back Brian Peterson-Roest from Bees In The D. Bees In The D is a non-profit organization whose mission is to create a cooperative effort between residents, schools, organizations, and businesses in the city of Detroit and Southeast Michigan to contribute to both the health of honey bee colonies and native pollinators, and the education of their importance to our environment. Brian was with us back in December of 2019 and introduced us to their program in S.E. Michigan. In this episode, he returns to talk about their updates and all their growth. Also, he discusses their plans to build the Michigan Pollinator Center to serve as the Bees in the D main location and to help educate the community about the importance of pollinators and honey bees. They run at 100 miles per hour. Listen to this episode and see if you can keep up with everything they are doing! Before we talk with Brian, we talk with Dr. Jeff Pettis, who is the current President of Apimondia. A couple of weeks ago, Apimondia announced that the 2022 Congress scheduled in Ufa, Russia, was canceled due to Russia's (senseless) invasion and war with Ukraine. Jeff joins us to talk about the decision and the announcement made on March 13 to relocate the 2022 Congress! Also in this episode, we welcome back Ed Colby as he reads story from his new book, A Beekeeper's Life: Tales from the Bottom Board. This week, he talks about levitation in line while at Apimondia in Ukraine in 2019! This is a packed episode! One of our longest yet. Let us know what you think by leaving comments for this episode above. Start a discussion! Thank you for listening! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Bees in the D - https://beesinthed.com Apimondia - https://www.apimondia.org Ed Colby - A Beekeeper's Life: Tales From The Bottom Board - https://www.amazon.com/Beekeepers-Life-Tales-Bottom-Board/dp/1912271885/ Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com We welcome HiveAlive back as an episode sponsor. HiveAlive is the #1 liquid feed supplement for honeybees worldwide. It contains a unique blend of seaweed extracts, thyme and lemongrass. HiveAlive has been proven to increase bee strength, produce more honey, improved bee gut health and improved overwinter survival. Ask about HiveAlive and new HiveAlive Fondant & Pollen Patty at your local beekeeping store or visit the website www.usa.hivealivebees.com for more information. This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

What should a beekeeper be doing this time of year - end of winter and the beginning of spring? What is different between the southern and the northern tier of States? Where do you start? What do you look for? What can you do? In today's episode, we invite long time Ohio State University extension beekeeper and educator and cohost of the Honey Bee Obscura Podcast , Dr. James Tew, to talk with us about his experiences and insights into this important and potentially critical time of year. Discussions include: What do you do with the old equipment? When do you retire it? How do you know if it is still serviceable? Is there a standard way to determine if the equipment will still work? Does it matter? Why does Kim sit on his hive bodies? You will be surprised by how these three beekeepers approach this question. (Or not... remember, three beekeepers... five ways of doing something...) Late winter, early spring inspections start the beekeeping year. How you start, definitely effect the rest of the year. Listen in and listen as three experienced beekeepers discuss their approaches to late winter, early spring management! If you like this episode, share it with other beekeepers. Do you have a different approach? Leave a comment on the episode page and start a conversation! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com We welcome HiveAlive back as an episode sponsor. HiveAlive is the #1 liquid feed supplement for honeybees worldwide. It contains a unique blend of seaweed extracts, thyme and lemongrass. HiveAlive has been proven to increase bee strength, produce more honey, improved bee gut health and improved overwinter survival. Ask about HiveAlive and new HiveAlive Fondant & Pollen Patty at your local beekeeping store or visit the website www.usa.hivealivebees.com for more information. This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

This week we welcome back to the podcast Hailey Scofield and Nathan Oakes. They joined us back in November, 2019, when they were nominated as the one of the 18 finalists in the Empire State Development and Cornell University's Center for Regional Economic Advancement for "Grow-NY" – a food innovation and agricultural technology business challenge. They introduced us to their 'bee laser' for the automatic removal (or 'zapping') of varroa from the body of a honey bee. Jump ahead 27 months and they've moved from upstate New York to just outside Austin, Texas and are about to release their new product – the bee laser frame. They've gone through multiple iterations of the laser, refining their approach, placement, software and hardware. They've settled on placing the laser in the corner of the frame with an opening just big enough for the passage of a single honey bee. If the laser detects a varroa clinging to the bee, it gets zapped, explodes and dies. They honey bee is none the wiser and goes on about her business. If no varroa is detected, the bee is counted and that's it until the next bees passes through. At the end of the day, a beekeeper can get a report of the number of bees that passed through the frame and the number of varroa detected and the number of times the laser fired. Through the software the beekeeper can get an understanding of the colony's mite load. It sounds like science fiction. It is definitely science… but fiction? They say not! Listen in to the episode to learn more about the Bee Laser and check out their updated website for more information. Also on this week's episode, Northern Bee Books presents "Bee Books Old and New with Kim Flottum". This week, Kim reviews three books: Charles Dadant That Bee Man From Champagne, An Eyewitness Account of Early American Beekeeping: The Autobiography of A.I. Root , and Practical Small Scale Queen Rearing Using The Miller Method. All are good reads and provide great information on the history of beekeeping and practical bee management techniques. If you liked today's episode, subscribe/follow to keep up to date with the latest releases! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Combplex (Now Bee Lasers) - https://beelasers.com Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

In today episode, we welcome back Friend of the Podcast, commercial beekeeper, and longtime industry advocate, John Miller, to share with you his perspective of the 2022 almond pollination season. We caught up with John while he sat in the cab of his pickup at a stop in Central California. On John's last visit to the podcast, he talked with us about his plans for indoor wintering. Today, we asked just how that went. His take? Indoor wintering works with more healthy bees the result and it's going to change what happens every spring in California's almond orchards. Indoor wintering now allows for the inspection of colonies before leaving they leave the indoor facility in January. That is an equally big change in shipping bees to California. The result? More colonies are healthy in January and the California border inspection stations aren't overwhelmed with thousands of trucks backed up loaded with bees heading to the almond orchards each January. The almond bloom is about a week early this year up north and hive theft is still happening. Locked gates help a lot but don't stop it completely. There is a change underway in the industry as more commercial beekeepers are focusing on raising bees for pollination and later packages than in producing honey. Like a big game of 'whack-a-mole', tariffs and trade sanctions just push the problem of cheap honey imports to pop up from new countries. (Locally produced and sold honey is still valuable!) Listen in as John shares his observations of the largest movement of honey bees in the world from the cab of a pickup truck with today's guest. If you liked today's episode, subscribe/follow to keep up to date with the latest releases! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

In this episode, we welcome Nicola Bradbear to the podcast for the first time. Nicola is the Director of Bees for Development. Bees for Development uses bees to reduce poverty through sustainable beekeeping and increase biodiversity. One of the most overlooked aspects of using beekeeping as an income source in developing countries, is that the beekeeper does not need to own land. In 1993, Nicola Bradbear drew on that foundation to start an organization to teach low to no income people in developing countries how to keep bees using locally sourced equipment, start businesses that can thrive locally, and develop global markets for their products. Bees for Development shares beekeeping skills with people in the poorest communities of the world, giving a reliable, sustainable income for life. Bees for Development has learned that simple, low-cost and local styles of beekeeping work best while keeping to the principles of natural beekeeping. Their programs are successful. Listen today to learn more about this incredible organization and Nicole who leads it. If you liked today's episode, subscribe/follow to keep up to date with the latest releases! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Bees for Development - https://www.beesfordevelopment.org Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

On today's episode, we are joined by Randy Oliver. If you don't read Randy's ABJ column and don't check in on his Scientific Beekeeping website, you've been missing some of the most up to date news on breeding mite resistant bees, and the newest, best mite treatment discovered so far. Randy discusses his breeding program producing honey bees that are totally resistant to varroa, mostly, but he's not quite ready to say they are completely resistant, but feels he will soon. Regarding his tests using controls for varroa, he has an organic product, that is easy on bees, tough on mites and you can use it with honey supers on. Only hitch – it's not registered. And that's his goal right now - you can help. Listen in on some of the best news on varroa we've had in 30 years. If you liked today's episode, subscribe/follow to keep up to date with the latest releases! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Scientific Beekeeping Website - https://scientificbeekeeping.com Chickabuzz website - http://chickabuzz.com Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

We have a special treat this week because Kim Lehman has come for a visit. Kim is an educator at heart and works with children of all ages. She started her regular column, All The Buzz In Bee Kids Corner, for Bee Culture over 20 years ago, and every other month offers puzzles, quizzes, drawings, educational bits and pieces, submitted photos and more aimed at grade school kids. She has a huge following of kids in her Bee Buddy Club, with members in every single state. Check out Kim Lehman this time, you might even get a sing along song. Also in this episode, we start a new segment called, "Bee Books: Old & New" sponsored by Northern Bee Books. In this new segment Kim (Flottum) who's not only an author, editor and book reviewer, is an avid antiquarian bee book collector for decades. He puts all this together, working with our newest sponsor Northern Bee Books, a new, used and antiquarian book seller in the UK, and every other week will offer his reviews of beekeeping books from authors who wrote 150 years ago, to those just released. Find out what you've missed, and what's new, right here every other week on Bee Books: Old & New. If you liked today's episode, subscribe/follow to keep up to date with the latest releases! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Kim Lehman's Website - https://www.kimlehman.com/ Beekeeper's Lab on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1631592688 Northern Bee Books - https://www.northernbeebooks.co.uk/ Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their sponsorship of Bee Books: Old & New with Kim Flottum. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. Check them out today! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular podcast featuring interviews with leading bee and insect researchers in the world of pollination, hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Today, we welcome James Watts from Whale Labs, in Australia. Whale Labs works on a variety of research projects, but today we talk with him about the honey bee venom collection and the commercial value of that venom. Whale Labs has developed a honey bee venom collector that is easy to use, does not harm the bees, and makes collecting bee venom fast, easy, safe and very profitable. Moreover, regular collections do not harm the hive, nor reduce honey production. The collector consists of a glass plate placed in at the entrance of the hive. Alarm pheromone is administered near the entrance of the hive to draw bees out of the hive. When bees start walking on the glass plate, embedded wires in the plate are made to pulse, or vibrate, which irritates the bees, that then sting the glass plate, ejecting venom. The barbed sting does not catch on the plate, so when the bees are empty of venom, they quit and return inside. The venom crystalizes and is easily gathered by scraping it off the glass plate. Raw venom in this form can be sold for $80 - $100 per gram. However, if it has the various components extracted, using an HPLC and a mass spectrometer (together valued at somewhere near $100,000), the principle component of this that is used in cosmetics and elsewhere, has a value of somewhere in the neighborhood of $1500/microgram, and one gram of venom contains about 200 micrograms of this particular valuable component. Whale Labs sells collectors, provides technical support, and the market for the collected products. Visit them at www.Whalelabs.com/au. Listen today. This could be your next profit generator from your operation. If you liked today's episode, subscribe/follow to keep up to date with the latest releases! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Whale Labs - https://www.whalelabs.com.au/ Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

On today's show, we welcome back Jay Williams of William's Honey Farm and South Hall Farms. Right off, Jay, who was with us in December, talked about preparing and entering the Good Food Awards contest for Honey Has WON this very prestigious award for this year. You heard him here first! This time, Jay walks us through his beekeeping operation, looking at the products he sells, the marketing and branding operation he has developed, and his work at South Hall Farm, near Nashville. Jay spends about 30 – 40% of his time actually managing his 100+ colonies, raising queens and harvesting products. Another 20% or so is spent on marketing the products his bees produce, and about 30 – 40% of his time is aimed at giving lessons and teaching, giving tours and otherwise using what he does to make money by sharing and showing. His philosophy starts with "What is your time worth?", and follows that with telling stories to get the customer involved, getting his message out, using social media, finding and catering to his niche market of local honey users, knowing your costs, staying ahead of the curve with bees, beekeeping and beekeeping products, being ready to fail but getting up and figuring it out, and making it all work together. His work at South Hall Farms consists of managing the pollinator gardens that surround the Southern Hospitality Farm and Resort, supporting the many native bees, birds and butterflies that visit these gardens, and taking care of the bees they have on site. When you are done listening to this fantastic marketing genius, great beekeeper and award-winning honey producer, you will be much better prepared to make it all work for you, too. Also in this episode, we welcome back Ed Colby as he reads story from his new book, A Beekeeper's Life: Tales from the Bottom Board. This time we learn a little about quarterback Terry Bradshaw and spring time management. Listen and subscribe/follow today! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Williams Honey Farm - https://williamshoneyfarm.com South Hall Farms - https://southallfarms.com Good Food Foundation / Awards - https://goodfoodfdn.org/awards/ Ed Colby - A Beekeeper's Life: Tales From The Bottom Board - https://www.amazon.com/Beekeepers-Life-Tales-Bottom-Board/dp/1912271885/ Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

This week we've invited Rich Morris, of Broodminder, to provide updates on what's new and what's improved with his Broodminder Hive Monitoring sensor collection. Broodminder has been in the hive monitoring business for many years and Rich states they are starting to design and release their second and third generations of products. For starters, Broodminder has completely reworked their mobile app so it is faster, shows more information and is easier to use. This past year, they introduced a "SubHub", an information collector for up to 50 hive sensors in a beeyard. The beekeeper can then make one quick stop at a yard and download the data to their cellphone or iPad/tablet to the Internet. They've also reworked the scales this year so now you can use the original simple front-end scale, or use a scale that weighs the whole hive. A scale can come assembled, or unassembled for you to do yourself. You'll save money with this new scale. The BeeCounted web page is becoming very useful for Broodminder users, and beekeepers anywhere. A map shows where Broodminder users are by zip code, and you can look at the data from any of these users, yourself included, and see if your hives are similar, or different than nearby hives, which may give you a heads up on trouble. That's just a start of the products designed and built for beekeepers by beekeepers. They also have a variety of cellular and WiFi enabled collectors that keep your hives connected so you can monitor them from wherever you are at any given moment If distant hive monitoring, or even backyard hive monitoring is important, or you're just curious as to what's going on inside, you will be interested in what this episode! Listen and subscribe/follow today! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Broodminder Website - https://broodminder.com BeeCounted - https://www.beecounted.org BeeCounted Map - https://map.beecounted.org/citizen_science/embedded_map One of Jeff's Monitored Hives on BeeCounted - https://map.beecounted.org/hive/summary/DQ0O Bee Hive Monitoring Group on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/471604447501945/ Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

This is the third time we've talked with Sven-Erik Spichiger about the Asian Giant Hornet in the state of Washington, and this time he shares some history, enlightens us with the discoveries they've made so far, what they managed to accomplish this past season, and what they plan for next year. All this to keep this pest, or better, get rid of this pest, before it becomes established in the Pacific Northwest. The good folks in Washington have spent their third season searching for that newest pest – sometimes called The Murder Hornet – with some amount of success, and a lot of good experience and a host of new techniques for finding, capturing and measuring what this new pest is up to. The AGH was originally found in British Columbia in 2019. In 2020 Citizen Scientists, USDA, APHIS and Washington State Entomologists set up thousands of traps in the northern part of the state. They captured one nest. But they began to refine their equipment, condense the areas they were looking in, and get more people interested in helping them find more. In 2021 they again set thousands of traps and caught several, used better tracking tags for live captured hornets, and began looking at where they were living, and what they were eating. Alder trees are popular, but so are holes in the ground at the base of trees. The researchers observed the AGH favored the paper wasp nests of the PNW. The wasp nests are a great source of food, and figuring out how the AGH attacked, destroyed and then ate their wasp lunch was an interesting find. They also determined the WA State AGH was genetically related to AGH in Korea. In 2022, more citizen scientists will help out, and Washington researchers will worth with counterparts in Korea to study the native population of these creatures. This will provide better insight to the biology, diet, nesting habits and more, of the AGH of Washington State. Oops... sorry, we couldn't find the photo of Sven-Erik eating a larvae... dipped or otherwise. Listen today and FOLLOW today! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Washington State Department of Agriculture Asian Giant Hornet site - https://agr.wa.gov/hornets Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Hey everybody. Kim and Jeff are taking the week off and will be back next week with a new episode. For this week's Holiday Reply, we bring you our talk with Dr. Sam Ramsey from April, 2021. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do! Thank you for listening and Happy New Year! --------- Dr. Samuel Ramsey is back with us again, looking at all sorts of questions than bother beekeepers, and working with smart kids and science! Sammy hasn't not let any grass grow under his feet since he was forced to return home from his research in Thailand studying Tropilaelaps mites (Tropilaelaps clareae and T. mercedesae) so we are ready if and when they arrive in the US. It turns out there is a very clever way to identify which species of Tropi-mite, as they call them in Thailand, is infesting a hive. Believe it or not, they actually "melt" the DNA of the creature and can ID them from what's left. That's a big step in the right direction for these nasties. While in Thailand, he also observed the Giant Asian Hornet, the "murder hornet" we now have poking into in Pacific Northwest. He worked with local beekeepers looking for nests, watching them destroy honey bee colonies and then harvesting the larvae of a destroyed hornet nest for a delicacy food. He also found out why some bees spread water buffalo dung on their hives to keep the hornets away. This is really a mind blower. Sammy's work on varroa and fat bodies didn't slow down one bit this year. They've uncovered that the female mite harvests certain proteins from the fat body and then funnels them directly into the developing egg without first digesting the protein rich meal. These whole, complete proteins are needed by the embryo to complete development. Now, how can that process be interrupted? That's the million-dollar question. Just imagine if the discovery leads to a control which doesn't involve putting poison into the hive… When Sammy was here last, he talked about forming his Ramsey Research Foundation, to replace the original "GoFundMe" site. Through the Foundation you can help support the work he's involved in - heading back to Thailand in the fall, working more with Giant Hornets, and finding out how to quit putting poison in our beehives. Check out the Foundation, and see if you, or better your beekeeping group, can help make this a better world for us, our bees, and beekeepers everywhere. Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Ramsey Research Foundation - https://www.ramseyresearchfoundation.org Sammy's Website - https://www.drsammy.online Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Happy Holidays Everybody! Come on along and listen in to Jeff and Kim and Kirsten and Jim when they get together around the virtual Christmas Tree and talk about the Holidays, the good and bad for last year and what they hope will be going on next year. Kirsten Traynor, and her 2MillionBlossoms podcast moved to Germany this year when she took a new job at one of the best beekeeping institutes in Europe, LAVES Institute of Bee Science Celle. Moving in the middle of a pandemic was a challenge, but her new job was worth it. Her new institute is involved basically in 3 areas of bees and beekeeping. They produce honey, and this year had a bumper heather crop. They also are involved in honey analysis, and in teaching the next generation of commercial beekeepers. Spring this year was cold and wet and Kirsten is hoping for better weather this coming spring. Kim (Beekeeping Today Podcast & Honey Bee Obscura) had a fairly good year with the bees, and so far, winter has been mild and easy. He did miss a lot of meetings this past year and hopes that changes this coming year. His connections in the beekeeping world are troubled with the current price of honey, and producing more bees and less honey seems like a better way to go. Jim Tew (Honey Bee Obscura) spent quite a bit of time wrestling with mite issues and queen issues this year, and hopes to be better prepared next season. He also is coming to grips with the fact that lifting 70-pound boxes of honey over the top of his head might not be the best thing any more, so downsizing his bee box size may be in his future. Jeff (Beekeeping Today Podcast) is still learning about the weather in the Pacific Northwest, which is cooler and wetter than his previous beeyards in Ohio and Colorado. He's looking to get better at figuring out how to keep his bees warmer and drier next year. Not to mention, keeping all three of podcasts up and running and getting better. The group is working on getting a regular newsletter out starting soon. They hoped it would be early December, but that obviously didn't work, but it's getting closer. Stay tuned, and HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM ALL OF US AT GROWING PLANET MEDIA!! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: 2 Million Blossoms podcast - https://2millionblossoms.com/thepodcast/ Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular newsletter and podcast focused on stories and photos of all pollinators and hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Follow Beekeeping Today Podcast today! Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott. Ed Colby's short, "Possums in the Outhouse", Brightside Studio Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Joining the podcast today is Stephanie Bruneau, co-author of the new book, "Common Sense Natural Beekeeping." Stephanie Bruneau and our very own Kim Flottum, recently released this new book with Quarry Press. We talk with the authors about the basics of Natural Beekeeping and the role a beekeeper has to take to stay as natural as possible – all while aiding and guiding the colony so it stays healthy. For their latest work, Kim's desire to not put poison in a beehive is mirrored by Stephanie's. So to deal with the many pests and diseases bees encounter, a variety of management practices are used, and types of hives are described. According to Stephanie and Kim, this is where the "common sense" part comes in. Sound management, no chemicals, adequate housing, good nutrition, local stock and attention to detail, when combined by the bees and the beekeeper, add up to Common Sense Natural Beekeeping. Stephanie is also the author of The Benevolent Bee, looking at working and using honey bee products. Listen today! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Common Sense Natural Beekeeping - https://smile.amazon.com/Common-Sense-Natural-Beekeeping-Bee-Friendly/dp/1631599550/ The Benevolent Bee - https://smile.amazon.com/Benevolent-Bee-Remedies-techniques-propolis/dp/1631592866/ Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular newsletter and podcast focused on stories and photos of all pollinators and hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Follow Beekeeping Today Podcast today! Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott. Ed Colby's short, "Possums in the Outhouse", Brightside Studio Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Dr. Caydee Savinelli leads the Honey Bee Health Coalition's task force on Minimizing Pesticide Risk For Honey Bees. Caydee is a passionate entomologist and pollinators of all kinds are a big part of her life, so she has been very instrumental in helping the HBHC develop its best management practices for pesticide protection. Caydee stresses that both beekeepers and farmers need to understand the risks of pesticides to honey bees and works with both pesticide manufacturers and farmers so the labels are fully understandable. Good pollinator stewardship boils down to good communication between pesticide manufacturers, farmers, and beekeepers, knowing bee habits, understanding an awareness of local laws, and putting all of these together for a Best Management Practice so farmers and honey bees can both thrive. In addition to Caydee, one of our regional beekeepers and Bee Culture regular contributor, Ed Colby sends us a reading from his new book, A Beekeeper's Life - Tales from the Bottom Board, available on Amazon or wherever you buy your books! All-in-All, we have a great episode for you this week! Listen today and learn how the Honey Bee Health Coalition is working to make the world safer for honey bees and all pollinators! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Honey Bee Health Coalition - https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org HBHC - Part 1: Intro & Overview w/Matt Mulica - https://www.beekeepingtodaypodcast.com/s3e44 HBHC - Part 2: Pests & Predators w/Mary Reed & Dr. Dewey Caron - https://www.beekeepingtodaypodcast.com/s4e4 HBHC - Part 3: Forage & Habitat w/Pete Berthelsen - https://www.beekeepingtodaypodcast.com/s4e13 Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular newsletter and podcast focused on stories and photos of all pollinators and hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Follow Beekeeping Today Podcast today! Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott. Ed Colby's short, "Possums in the Outhouse", Brightside Studio Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Joining us is Bee Culture contributor and author, Ross Conrad. Ross is a commercial beekeeper in Vermont. He runs a small commercial operation running about 100 colonies and all are treatment free. He makes honey, does a bit of pollination and does a good bit of teaching. He is the author of Natural Beekeeping, a serious look at keeping bees without the use of disease or pest management chemicals, which is in its second edition. Just released is his new book, The Land Of Milk And Honey, with Bill Mares, a history of beekeeping in their home state of Vermont. Beekeeping in Vermont excels in overwintering and queen production that will help beekeepers anywhere. Today Ross talks about the pricing scandal around the EpiPen, the syringe used to apply epinephrine to people experiencing extreme allergic reactions to a variety of substances including honey bee venom. Extreme price increases have made these difficult, if not impossible to obtain by beekeepers to have around to prevent problems. Ross then talks with us about beekeeping history from several pioneers of Vermont beekeeping and ties it into his newest book with Bill Mare. Vermont's history is full of fascinating beekeepers, unique to the area, who's management techniques have touched us all. Listen to this noted Natural Beekeeper today on Beekeeping Today Podcast! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Ross' website - www.dancingbeegardens.com EpiPen Class Action Lawsuit (Filing date has passed) - https://www.epipenclassaction.com Natural Beekeeping Book by Ross, on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Beekeeping-Organic-Approaches-Apiculture/dp/1603583629/ Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a regular newsletter and podcast focused on stories and photos of all pollinators and hosted by Dr. Kirsten Traynor. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Follow Beekeeping Today Podcast today! Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

In this episode, we invite Cliff Struhl on the show to talk about his company, Bee Smart Designs. Cliff actually got his start in manufacturing beekeeping equipment because his wife didn't want cinder blocks and 2x4's as hive stands in her very well-designed gardens around their home. Cliff, whose business is manufacturing plastic, blow molded sidewalk sign holders, figured out a way to make an appealing hive stand using the existing technology of making his sign stands. And he was off! After his hive stand, Cliff designed a feeder that now solves many problems of the typical Boardman and Miller feeders. It's very close to the bees, they can't get up into it, it has no drip and is easy to fill. Going to the bottom board was next, with a stainless screen that won't rust, and built-in mouse guard, robbing screen and entrance reducers that makes it an all-in-one bottom. His insulated inner cover has a foam layer on top for warmth, has an opening for a top entrance if needed, or closed so no ventilation for warmth. Moisture is condensed on walls for the bees, but the top stays warm….much like a tree. Coming soon is a magnetic hive tool holder belt, to keep you from losing your tool somewhere in a bee yard. And for everybody, Pry Point, to make separating sticky boxes much easier. All of these are available from nearly every bee supply dealer (including our sponsor – BetterBee) and you can locate one near you by going to BeeSmart Designs web page. Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Bee Smart Designs - https://www.beesmartdesigns.com Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Follow Beekeeping Today Podcast today! Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Last year, we talked with The Good Food Foundation about their annual honey contest (S3, E14). This year, we bring you four of the 15 finalists to talk about their entries and their beekeeping operation. Winners will be announced the week of the episode's release! Honey for the contest is entered and only compared to honeys from the region it is produced and it can be liquid, comb or infused. The honey must be entered by the beekeeper who produced it. The judges look at how it was produced and harvested, overall animal husbandry, and is there any community engagement with bees, beekeeper and the people in their world. First up in the episode, we have Max Kirwin, the Good Food Awards leader, who oversees all 18 committees for this contest. Joining Max is Mark Carlson, the Honey Committee chair who will share what it is they are looking for in each honey submission category. Mark was with us back in August of 2020 in our first episode with the Good Food Foundation. We have 4 very different finalists this time. Jay Williams of Williams Honey Company and South Hall Farms, is working to build a destination luxury resort dedicated to sustainability, agricultural, culinary discovery and the circle of life. Of course, honey and pollinators play an important role to the theme. Ethan West, of Republic of Vermont Honey Company, they manage a treatment free apiary with bees spread out over 3 counties in the Champlain Valley of Vermont and the Green Mountains. Dustin Vanasse, along with Michael Gilbert of Bare Honey, produces honey in solar panel yards all over California. Dusty has learned the tricks of Solar Based Beekeeping, utilizing the acreages and space around these large installations to produce infused honey, using organic and local peppers for his flavoring. Before they left, we asked each of these finalists give tips on how to get ready for next year's competition. A whole lot of good advice in this final segment. Think you have good honey? Then think about entering next year's Good Food Awards. Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Good Food Foundation - https://goodfoodfdn.org Good Food Award - Honey Competition - https://goodfoodfdn.org/awards/categories/honey/ Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Follow Beekeeping Today Podcast today! Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

We welcome back Dr. Brittney Goodrich, Assistant Cooperative Extension Specialist at the University of California, Davis. Brittney joined us originally on October 5, 2020 to talk about her research on the importance of Almond Pollination contracts. Today, she joins us to discuss just how the success (or lack thereof) of the almond pollination season impacts the rest of the nation's beekeeping for the year. Here is a truth: No matter how large or small your operation is this year, almond pollination in California is going to have some effect on how your season goes. Almond pollination uses about 90% of available honey bee colonies each spring, and many, many of those colonies are used later for queen production, package shaking, nuc and split production and make in honey later in the season. Almond pollination affects colonies in orchards in many ways. Primarily - colony health. Almond pollen is a rich source of food for these bees, so that helps, but because 90% of US bees are in just a few counties of California, every colony out there has a good chance of catching whatever any colony within flight range has . Almond season has the real potential to become a superspreader event. Almond pollination WILL affect your beekeeping next season. Be as ready as you can for all that can happen. Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Brittney's Website with useful almond research information - http://www.brittneygoodrich.com/ Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Follow Beekeeping Today Podcast today! Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

For this episode, we invite back our regular regional beekeepers to sit down with us and discuss how their season went, what surprises they had, what worked, what didn't and what they were planning for in 2022. In their discussions with each other, they talked about making comb honey, mead, honey prices in their area, swarm preventions techniques, and regional varroa populations. Mark Smith is from North Carolina. He's a chemical free beekeeper and has been for a decade or so. He is pretty isolated and relies on his own survivor stock for mite control. Tracy Alarcon lives in north east Ohio and is running about 10 colonies. He did good with early honey this year, but the goldenrod didn't produce like he thought it would. He makes mead and comb honey along with liquid honey, but keeps much of the liquid for himself. Ed Colby lives on the western slope of the Rockies, and his book came out this summer. Entitled A Beekeeper's Life. Tales From The Bottom Board. Each chapter is from one of his Bottom Board columns in Bee Culture magazine and is doing well. He experienced some drought this summer, the higher elevation beeyards did well. He runs about 70 colonies. Normally he sells spring splits, but next year is looking to expand so will keep most of those. Listen to our Regional Beekeepers as they discuss their years. Are they like you? Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Follow Beekeeping Today Podcast today! Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

In this episode, we talk with Jonna Sanders about AŽ hives (NA Beekeepers say "AZ". We learn today that it correctly pronounced "AH-shah". Jonna is a lifelong AŽ Hive beekeeper and sells AŽ hives in the US. Today we talk with her in depth on how beekeepers manage these hives. We talked with Regional Beekeeper, Paul Longwell back in May as part of our Five-Part Series on Different Hive Types, where he introduced us to the AŽ Hive. Slovenian in origin, these hives are inside a building or wagon and the bees exit their hives from openings on the outside wall or side. Beekeepers, however, go into the building or wagon and are able to open these hives from a 'cabinet door' on the back, so the bees barely notice the beekeeper's activity. When asked what's the best thing about these hives, the immediate answer is NO LIFTING! When the beekeeper opens the hives from the back inside the building, removing the frames to examine them is much like removing books off a shelf. They sit in metal supports so there is very little propolis, they are kept in exactly beespace distance, and they slide out very easily. Jonna talks about frame size, shape, bee escapes, pollen traps, the types of bees Slovenian beekeepers typically use, overwintering in a building, installing packages, the fact that you can examine your hives no matter the weather outside, and much more. Remember, no lifting. Listen today and an AŽ Hive just might be in your back yard next summer. In the episode, Jonna talks about her annual tour of beekeeping in Slovenia. Details are not yet available for a 2022 trip as the pandemic complicates international travel. Contact Jonna through her website to receive updates and announcements. Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: AZ Hives North America - https://azhivesnorthamerica.com AŽ Hive Inspection - https://youtu.be/ws5nbLyfNiI AŽ Hives Group on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/2134465946665350/ Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Follow Beekeeping Today Podcast today! Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Imagine a completely automated beekeeping operation. Well, BeeWise has created the Bee Home, housing 24 colonies that is a solar powered, insulated, and completely automated for every beekeeping management task. Saar Safar, our guest today, was approached by a beekeeper that had a rough idea of what he wanted, and Saar put his own skills at mechanical and digital automation to work and BeeWise came to be. The Bee Home is totally self-contained and requires almost no beekeeper assistance. There are 24 colonies in each unit, 12 colonies on each side of the bee home that open to the outside. Inside the bee home box there is a space between the two sides that a robot occupies. It can move from front to back, and it can inspect each of the hives from inside. It removes a frame, examines its condition relative to brood, disease, food and more, and sends the data to the cloud where a beekeeper can make appropriate management decisions. Annual losses in the Beewise bee homes are less than 10%, which is a real plus. Labor costs to manage and supply food for the robot to feed colonies, or remove the extracted honey are minute when compared to traveling to remote beeyards, having to examine each hive and then managing it for survival. The costs are evolving, but at this time there is no initial upfront purchase cost. Then $400/month for each unit containing 24 colonies. That's $200/year for each colony with essentially no labor costs and less than 10% annual loss. Almond pollination will pay the rent, and the honey made is only a plus, along with the many extra bees available to split and sell. They've been at this for several years, improving and adding features and testing these units, and thousands of colonies have been managed in them, and it seems they have it down. Take a look at the web page and see for yourself. BeeWise. Completely automated beekeeping. Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Beewise - https://beewise.ag Marla Spivak on Wait What, "How The Bees Saved Me" - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-the-bees-saved-me-by-dr-marla-spivak/id1472106563?i=1000538436515 Bee Blower - https://www.ryobitools.com/products/details/33287174447 Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Follow Beekeeping Today Podcast today! Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC